“Spire Ablaze” is the second part of the gamebook series “A road less travelled“, by the canadian author Jeffrey Dean. We will take again the role of the mysterious protagonist of the first part, “Westward Dystopia“, also reviewed in this blog. But here we will go back to a previous period in his life, when he belonged to the “Corps of Engineers” of the city of Root. In this story, the Shapers, a kind of mutants with powers of energy manipulation, attack the Guild of Technomancers and kidnap a group of young students. Our protagonist, along with other recently graduated students, will receive the mission of getting inside the heavily protected Spire, the Shaper city, and rescue the kidnapped students.

This book is very different to “Westward Dystopia” in many aspects. In that first book, our protagonist was a lone mercenary, and the general tone was very similar to that of westerns, or movies like “Mad Max“, where a cynical and disenchanted antihero carried out missions for the best bidder, cuestioning at the same time his actions, and those of his contractors.

Here we will return to a kinder and less lonely period of his life. A time in which, perhaps innocently, the young Wanderer believed in values like justice or comradership. His colleagues in this mission will be Technician Quill – one of his teachers, now the leader of the team – his best friend Lucille and another two studends called Percy and Willard. Willard, probably the strangest of them all, will spend a great part of the mission taking notes on a small notebook.

With this heterogeneous group we will have to get inside the dangerous fortress of the Shapers, the Spire, trying to stay unseen until the very moment in which they recover their kidnapped classmates. On the way there, we will discover many things from the Shapers – the structure of their society, their power struggles or the existence of a mysterious deity called the Oracle, that tries to seize the power inside the Spire.

And, even after the mission has finished, the story will keep on revealing some surprises. A meta-story, continued from Westward Dystopia, will give us clues of a conflict taking place in different moments in time, where the individual persons are just pawns on a greater play. When I finished “Spire Ablaze“, I realized that Jeffrey has a very clear idea in mind of how the next books in the series are going to continue, and that this story will keep on branching out and getting more complex as the series goes on.

There are other differences with the first part. If “Westward Dystopia” was a gamebook that experimented with different structures and gave a great freedom of choice, here Jeffrey aimed for a “convergent“, more traditional gamebook structure, with a few less choices but much longer sections. Dialogues between main characters are much more important this time, as well as character development.

This has its pros and its cons. On the negative side, there is a scene close to the end of the gamebook that, even if it gave a lot of important information about the internal struggles within the Shaper society, it felt a tad too long for not having any interaction – altough Jeffrey has already told me that this will be solved in the Android version of the game. On the more positive side, some of the dialogues are wonderful. Specifically, Lucille is one of the most credible and “lovable” characters of any gamebook I’ve read recently.

“Spire Ablaze” still has the same attention to detail I had the opportunity to enjoy in “Westward Dystopia“. The world described is a complex and coherent one, the Spire is a city with an interesting historical background – we will discover as we read the story that it was a very different place before the Razing – and it still has that detail I loved of dedicating a specific section for each one of the “deaths” we find. Also as in the previous book, “Spire Ablaze” has several different endings – although only one of them called “The Truth” is the real one. If you have played the previous book, you’d know that – even when Jeffrey has done some effort to soften it – it is not a very cheerful one.

Is “Spire Ablaze” better than “Westward Dystopia“? I wouldn’t be able to tell. It is a very different story, and it delves deeper in the themes that the first book started. What I can say is that it’s a worthy sequel, and one that fans of Jeffrey Dean’s post-apocalyptic world owe themselves to read.

Westward Dystopia is a gamebook from Greek Winter Media. While it started being an application for the Android mobile OS, after a recent and successful crowfunding in Kickstarter, it will also see the light as a printed book and an ebook.

As the name says, Westward Dystopia leads us to a post-apocalyptic world, several hundreds of years after a mysterious event called “the Razing“, that turned the world into a radioactive wasteland. If, after reading these lines, we can think of well known franchises of the genre such as Mad Max, it is no coincidence. The author, Jeffrey Dean, has been clearly inspired by the post-apocalyptic fantasies of the eighties, with their ruins and their hordes of mutants. Nevertheless, the world developed by Jeffrey Dean has a good number of original ideas.

To begin with, we will find no car chases in the middle of the desert, or great arsenals of weapons. The Razing arrived long time ago, and most of the technology of the previous world has dissappeared. The few who still preserve and learn from that technology, artifact seekers like our protagonist, or a mysterious organization called the Guild of Technomancers, do what they can to keep those discoveries in the hands of a very few. So, for most of the population of the wasteland, any pre-Razing object is considered a kind of magic. In this sense, the world of Westward Dystopia reminds me a bit of the role playing game Numenera, with its conception of technology as magic, and the great ruins of forgotten civilizations full of traps and powerful discoveries.

And what exactly is our story about? Our main character is an artifact hunter, who has to obtain the key that will allow him to get inside the protective barrier of the ruins of an ancient city. Those who obtain that key will have access to the whole technology hidden in the city, which means to incline the balance of power greatly for whichever faction who gets it. Initially, our objective will be to hand over this power to the High Lords of the city of Benaeron, the ruling class of said city, who have promised us enough richness to live in peace for the rest of our lives.

At the same time, other groups are trying to stop us. Some mysterious mercenaries have been hired to eliminate us at the beginning of our story, and the Guild of Technomancers, an organization we were part of but we flew from once they discovered we were a Shaper – a kind of mutant with powers of energetic manipulation -, is also behind our tracks.

The story is more than 120.000 words long. It has been designed to allow great replayability. We will be able to discover many secret places and hidden aspects for the many characters we’ll find. Another nice touch where I could see the attention for detail in this gamebook is in the endings; Not only there are 6 “good” endings, some of them radically different from the others, but also every single “bad” ending has a specific written section. No matter how good or bad we make it, there will always be an ending for our story.

I think that one of the most interesting aspects of this story is in our character. A mercenary who sells his work to the powerful in order to survive, but questions the morality of what he does and, as we can often read between the lines, asks himself if it’s worth offering such a powerful technology to those who make the life of the population miserable. We see through his internal monologues how he condemns himself for having to take specific decisions, even if they are necessary for his objectives. Deep inside, he’d like to live in a fairer world, and resents the circumstances that force him to be evil.

That’s why, even though I’ve really enjoyed this story, I think I will enjoy the next ones even more. I get the feeling that Jeffery Dean is going to dig deeper in the societies of the wasteland, and all those themes – so uncommon for gamebooks – as the consequences and the morality of our actions in an unfair world, will be developed in more detail.

In short, Westward Dystopia is a great story, well written and full of details. I have yet to read another review for this gamebook, and that surprises, because I feel this story deserves more attention.

It could be that the looks of this Android app have discouraged buyers; even if the app is well tested and does what it needs to be done, the interface isn’t as “flashy” as those of other companies like Tin Man Games, with all the fancy 3D dices. Also, the drawings by David White, even if they are appropiate and grow on you the more you look at them, they are less “spectacular” or “sexy” than those of other companies. That’s why I’d like to encourage giving an opportunity to this work to those who didn’t find it attractive at first sight. With some good stories, it’s when getting immersed in them when we discover what they really have to offer, and Westward Dystopia is no exception.

And, if reading on a phone screen is not of our liking, be on the lookout for the next edition on ebook and paper!